


Like Marriage

by grubbies



Series: This is a Love Story [4]
Category: Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cannibalism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mild Sexual Content, Mutual Pining, Other, Politics, Pre-Relationship, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 07:36:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17199308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grubbies/pseuds/grubbies
Summary: And hindsight’s twenty-twenty, but even foresight isn’t blind. His appetite should have tipped him off that something was going on. Or his fever. Or the slowly creeping feeling ofhome home homein his chest. But every second is sensory overload and every second is muted and besides, Eddie’s always been a little oblivious.Anne’s more observant, of course. “You always said the home fries here were too salty and dry”. She stares at him across the the table as he shoves more potato into his mouth. “Are you… sure… He’s gone?”“Yeah”Eddie had felt Him die. Nothing had ever been clearer in his life





	Like Marriage

**Author's Note:**

> finally posting the sad angsty 'how they find their way back to each other after the rocket' fic i forgot to finish from a month ago
> 
> also - i love the movie more than i love the comics canon by a substantial margin, but! i miss the church scene! its very gay and! i want it!  
> so here's that on that!
> 
> note: they don't actually like, get together romantically in this one, but it is very gay. dare i call it homoerotic.  
> this piece is like, very closely linked w the first one in the series it's a part of

* * *

 

 

 

Again Eddie sinks down into the water. Searching. Desperate. _He’s got to be here, He’s here He’s here._

Another rush of saltwater into his lungs before he’s pulled to the surface by his own ( _stupid, singular_ ) body’s survival mechanisms. He doesn’t want them.

He does his best to sink again.

“Come back. Please!” The water is frigid, burns his raw skin and scorches his newly vulnerable heart. _Please. Please. It’s ok, you can bring the others. It’s ok, you can have the earth, I don’t care I chose you. I chose you. I chose us. Please come back._

 

Anne’s there when the paramedics pull him ashore. A voice Eddie doesn’t recognise or care for speaks past him and to her: “his temperature’s very low, but somehow he managed not to sustain any injuries.

_Not ‘somehow’. Venom deserves credit._

“I’ll take him home. He’ll be ok”

_No, we won’t be._

“He… stopped something awful, didn’t he?”

_It was Venom. It was all Him._

“Yes”

_No._

Inside he’s an ocean more turbulent and cruel than that he’d been dragged from. The ocean which probably holds Venom’s dead body, which ripped them from one another. He wants to run back to that ocean but -

“Can you stand, Eddie?” Annie’s trying to pull him to his feet.

 _Who cares?_ “I dunno”

“Come’on Eddie, you’re ok. It’s all over now, you’re safe now”. She doesn’t say ‘safe from the monster’ but it lingers, harsh and cold, in the air. Dimly, Eddie’s aware they’re walking to her car, her hand’s on his shoulder. It’s like looking through layers of fabric, like he’s got earplugs and a heavy dose of emotional anesthesia on. “You saved everyone” she smiles as she starts the car, turns the heat up as high as it'll go.

“Venom saved everyone” he hears himself say, bitterness on the voice that feels so far away. Disconnected. “He saved me” and three days ago he would have been horrified to find himself sobbing so openly right there next to Annie, but he doesn’t have room to feel anything but loss.

She’s silent for a moment, a cruel moment. “He was killing you” she says, voice stern and full of finality.

“It should’ve been me”

“Eddie don-”

“It should have been me” and he believes that, feels it so deep it feels like it’s all he is, just a walking amalgamation of the Symbiote’s wasted sacrifice. He believes it, so it’s disorienting when it feels so wrong to say it, even think it. When it feels like distantly, someone’s pulling him away from the edge.

 

* * *

 

 

Anne and Dan offer, practically beg him to stay in their guest room. And when he says ‘no’ they beg again, and after that Dan mentions that the hospital has a deal with a nice hotel chain, and that he could set him up. But -

“I think I want to be alone”. Which is… beyond untrue, but lying through his teeth is better than saying ‘oh no, I can’t imagine ever being close to another human being again because some alien infected me and I’m sad and pathetic and actually _miss_ Him’. Eventually they let him leave, but not before he promises to come over in the morning to check in. He’s so dissociated that the future doesn’t even seem real, so what’s the harm in a promise like that?

 

* * *

 

 

He shambles down the street, limbs heavy. He wishes there was someone there to help him lift them, a task that he suddenly can’t imagine anyone actually manages on their own.

_Everyone else is just less broken than me._

Oh, that’s right, he _does_ still have a voice in his head, just not the one he wants.

 

He starts making his way towards his apartment, but well before he gets to the police tape and still-billowing smoke, he is stopped by the brutal memories of its destruction, by those few _moments_ he spent there with Venom.

They were violent, terrifying moments at the time, but he aches for them now.

Eventually he ends up at a shitty motel instead. At least no one there’ll try to comfort him, or act like they could _possibly_ share any connection from _so fucking far away._

 

* * *

 

 

He feels like he’s carrying around a corpse. Physically, emotionally, all of it. Like he’s got a dead body hung over his shoulders, swirled through his consciousness, and he’s barely strong enough to hold himself up right now, let alone both of them, so he just falls back on the bed.

It feel much too big, and he’d like to say it was because he wasn’t used to a queen-size but he knew that wasn’t it.

He’s bone-tired, mind pained and begging for unconsciousness, but he _can’t even do that right, apparently._

He tries his best to get to sleep, he really does, but instead he just lays there and soaks the stained pillowcase in tears. He feels like every nerve is exposed, over-sensitive. The lights outside are too bright and the voices of the humorously bickering couple in the room next-door are too loud and much, much too… _plural._ Couple-y.

Almost as much as he wishes Venom hadn’t saved him, Eddie wishes He hadn’t healed him. If he had physical injuries, at least he’d have a distraction from his disaster of a psyche.

Eventually, he makes his way across the street to the bodega, bathed in divine fluorescence and miraculously open all night. He grabs two bottles of sleeping pills, a half-liter of shit-quality vodka, and a pack of frozen tater tots.

The cashier raises her eyebrow as Eddie fumbles through his pocket for his (still soaking wet) wallet.

He stares ahead at the items on the counter. _Something’s wrong._ “Wait uhhh…”

She raises the bottle of alcohol, gives him a questioning glance. “You um, you want me to put this back?”

“No!” _no, absolutely not._ “I just -” and he pushes the tots back away from the counter. “I can’t uhhh… I can’t take these.”

She just purses her lips and bags up the other purchases.

 

Back in his room, he takes two pills (and then one more for good measure), and a swig, and pulls the covers over him as tight as he can. It tastes more like poison than he’s used too. He feels sicker than he should. Shaking. Sobbing. _See what you died for, asshole? Was it worth it?_ He’s numb and then also still raw. He feels as dead as the Other.

 

* * *

 

 

He expects that once he finally manages to get to sleep, that there would be nightmares. Instead, there’s nothing. Instead, he just falls into a 7 and a half hour coma.

He doesn’t wake up rested.

He doesn’t wake up feeling better.

In the morning, he’s just as torn in half. And starving. Empty stomach like his _stupid_ empty head. That girl’s still working at the corner store and he hates the look of pity and discomfort she gives him as he pays for a box of five ramen and two hershey’s bars with damp change.

But he feels a little better after he eats. A little better is still terrible, but… a little better. Warmer, maybe.

 

* * *

 

 

Around noon his phone rings for the third time, and he figures it’s Anne again and _I guess I did promise_ so he picks up. Didn’t check the ringer because who else would be calling?

The police, apparently. “Mr. Brock, could you come down to the station today? We… have some questions for you, about what happened at the L.I.F.E. foundation”.

“Yeah, yeah, sure” _fuck you._ And he hangs up before anyone says anything else. He knows he’s probably a suspect, probably _the_ suspect, of _something_ , but who cares. Not like he could fight off the pigs now. Alone. So whatever. Besides, distantly, he thinks, being locked up could give him a chance to write some great pieces, expose the evils of the prison industrial complex and all that. Distantly, because _that_ Eddie Brock had died in the bay. Sacrificed enough for the good of this world. Passion (and l- _and friendship_ he correctly harshly _…_ ) sunk in the depths.

 

He’s not a suspect, because as far as anyone seems to know, nothing particularly _criminal_ happened. Stories vary from “Carlton Drake accidently took some of his own experimental medicine and went crazy, tried to launch his half-finished rocket with a drugged team of scientists on-board” to “ it was a scheduled launch and something just… went wrong?”. Every TV in the station is tuned into a different channel, each with a different take on the “horrible tragedy”

_Yeah, it was a tragedy. You couldn’t understand._

Just because he isn’t a suspect per se (“We know you were there, you seem to be the only eye-witness of what actually happened at that launch, we just want to know the truth”, the deputy tells him), doesn’t mean he’s well received. It’s a police station, and he may not have worked in a few long months, but that doesn’t change that his show was well known and, in one of these guy’s words, “overly political”.

Most of these guys seem gruff with him just for having been there. Like they blame him for _poor sweet genius Carlton_ ’s early death. And he’d thought it was just tech kids that bought into the asshole’s little cult of personality. Apparently not.

“What were you doing there, anyway?” someone growls. He’s too disoriented to tell them apart. Although, that might just be the nature of their… profession.

“One of their scientists… uh… Dr. Skirth… asked me to get some pictures of her work”. Eddie hasn’t heard from her in a while. He hopes she's ok.

They ask him all about Drake and the explosion and if he knew anything about the firefight in the city (footage of all of that had _mysteriously_ vanished). He kinda feels like he’s on autopilot. Which is distinct, he’s learned, from the feeling of someone _else_ in the driver’s seat. He gives short, tight, vague answers. Something in his gut stirs with rage, wants the lash out about what the foundation was doing, about the death and the suffering and the injustice, about their own ( _my own, just me…_ ) sacrifice(s) to stop them. But this isn’t the place for that battle.

After a few hours and a thousand questions and cruels glances and more than one casual slur, he’s walking out of the precinct.

 

* * *

 

 

The next time his phone rings, it actually is Anne. And Dan, he’s there too.

“Eddie, are you ok?”

“Where did you stay last night? Anne said your apartment was _destroyed?_ ”

“Eddie please come over”

“Ed, why don’t we take you back to the hospital.”

His voice is a whisper, they might not even hear him across the phone line. “I’m fine”. The dead weight he’s been carrying around is getting denser and denser, more concentrated. Like a lead ball in his stomach. “I’m fine”.

“Did the network call? I bet this would make a great story.” Anne’s voice is soft. _Condescending._

“Eddie, we really need to make sure you’re ok after that parasi-”

“Dan!”

He feels hot, tight, seething anger. “I’m. Fine.” he practically growls. Ok, at least now he’s _feeling_ something.

“I didn’t mean-”

“Eddie… please…”

He hangs up. He knows that they’ll just keep calling, probably somehow find out where he’s staying and come by, but that’s a problem for future Eddie. _Maybe I’ll be gone by then anyway._ Oh _fuck_ that thought feels worse than normal.

 

* * *

 

 

They allow him into his building late that afternoon. It’s a wreck, but still structurally sound - his apartment has the worst of the damage by a long shot. It doesn’t matter, even if he _could_ stay there, it never felt like home, and _certainly_ not now, after… everything. So he just packs a backpack of clothes and some loose cash and his laptop and toothbrush. He’s about to leave, to head back to that fleabag, when he feels… a little less alone. Just for a second, a fleeting second. Like a sense of familiarity (maybe of _home_ ), reaching out, but not _his_ feeling. Like… like…

“Venom?” he whispers out into the silence, no sound to his voice and a lump of heartbreak in his throat.

No response. Of course.

He’s going crazy.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s easier to get to sleep that night. Easier and harder at the same time; he’s not as tired, a little jittery even, but everything’s down to a dull throbbing and the world seems farther away. He still cries against the pillow and still brings the bottle of vodka ( _no,_ _this is watered down rubbing alcohol_ ) to bed with him, but it is easier.

This time, there are dreams.

Eddie wakes up in a cold sweat, heart racing. He’s sobbing, pain searing through him, so hurt its turned physical, apparently. It doesn’t feel like it’s even _his_ pain. It’s like synthesized, pure, liquid _suffering_ has been poured over him, injected into him.

The sheets are sweaty, stick to his skin. Like they’re trapping him.

Calling it a nightmare wouldn’t really be right, because it’s just memories. Thick, _real._ Over and over again, memories of _dying._ Of burning, of Riot ripping them apart from each other. Of the ocean. Of the feelings that had flowed between them as they fell towards the water - _sorry_ and **_safety_ ** and … _lo-_   _oh fuck pretending, just admit it -_ ) and _love._

Memories of scrambling to get back to each other, trying and trying and then that last time - failing.

_Dying._

But now he’s awake, and alive. _Shouldn’t be._

It’s still dark out, or as dark as it could be with a window out to the lit parking lot and busy street. He takes another pill and rolls over. It kept hurting, but - _good, I deserve for it to hurt._

 

* * *

 

 

In the morning, Anne badgers him to meet her for breakfast, and he’s too exhausted to put up a fight.

“You don’t… look so good”

Something in him snarls at those words. Which is… odd. _I look like shit, no need to get defensive_. “Gee, thanks”

Her face is tight with concern. “I just mean… have you been getting any sleep? Eating?”

“I’m… I’m ok, I promise. Yeah.” _whatever._

She takes his hand from across the table once they sit down and settle into the booth. She’d suggested his favorite diner, but an errant thought about tainting somewhere full of good memories had lead him to decline and suggest, instead, his _third_ favorite diner. Much more neutral. Fine to ruin. He pulls his hand away. _Sorry._

“You should take some care of yourself. He died to save you, that should’n-”

“Don’t” and his voice is filled with daggers.

She studies him, analyzes him as tears prickle the corner of his eyes at her words. “I’m glad you’re ok, you know. I… I don’t want to lose you, Eddie”. And he knows she’s trying to comfort him, but all he gets is _guilt._

He orders a lumberjack breakfast (before realizing that Anne was gonna insist on paying for his meal). Wolfs everything down, but it’s the home fries that hit the spot. He orders two more helpings.

And hindsight’s twenty-twenty, but even foresight isn’t blind. His appetite should have tipped him off that something was going on. Or his fever. Or the slowly creeping feeling of _home home home_ in his chest. But every second is sensory overload and every second is muted and besides, Eddie’s always been a little oblivious.

Anne’s more observant, of course. “You always said the home fries here were too salty and dry”. She stares at him across the the table as he shoves more potato into his mouth. “Are you… _sure_ … He’s gone?”

“Yeah”

Eddie had _felt_ Him die. Nothing had ever been clearer in his life.

 

* * *

 

 

His old network emails him for the ninth time in the past thirty-one hours. Finally, that afternoon, he actually reads them.

They’re practically begging him to come back to work.

He stares at the correspondence blankly, rubs his face as he tries to reply. Unwraps yet another snickers bar absently, warmth flowing through him at the flavor. He’s typing up his (third draft of a) response when he feels it.

Like a shiver.

Something organic, _bright._ A metaphysical facsimile of reaching out. _Alive._

He can’t move, can’t breath.

He must have finally snapped. Or be drunk. Or maybe it was just the feeling of being tired and sick and that shivering feeling around his heart was just nausea and maybe -

 _Please come back. Please._ “Please I need you. I’m sorry, please” _please please. Venom._

 

The Symbiote's long since given up. 

He knows nothing, feels nothing. He's just... He's so  _tired._ Broken, so close to death. All fight burned away. 

Or, well, until now. 

Until suddenly, after what could be minutes or could be years, suddenly He can feel  _Eddie_ again. And it's not that He'd  _forgotten_  him, could never forget His perfect, beloved other half. He hasn't forgotten, it's just that now He  _remembers._ A tiny ghost of a connection. Not enough, but a promise. 

He can't give up, He has to get to Eddie. 

_**Eddie.** _

_**Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie.** _

They need eachother. They need to  _be_ together. Eddie's the only thing that can stop the  _hurt._

That's all He can comprehend, like this. He know's nothing but this endless suffering. Pain, swirling pain. The long drawn out agony of putting one’s self back together - two’s selves back together. Coldness, rawness. Confusion, conflict.

And _love_ , too. Through the torture, over the impossible distance, the infinity between them where even now, when He knows nothing, He knows there should be no space at all - through all the barriers comes _love._

 

Eddie spends the rest of the night acutely aware of every feeling. Pulling his emotions to the forefront of his thought, opening his heart up so wide it stings. Listening. Begging, _Please, please I need you._ He knows it’s probably ( _definitely_ ) nothing. But… if he’s already gone off the deep end, what’s the harm in indulging himself?  

 

* * *

 

 

Eddie dreams again that night, but they aren’t _his._

He doesn’t get the full picture - it’s like shattered glass, now fragments to put together strewn across his mind, and the edges of each bit are sharp enough to draw blood.

Half a memory of cruel voices. A swirl of feelings infecting them ( _him?_ them). Darkness. A tangled image of plants he doesn’t recognise. The stars above look _wrong_ ; out of position. Something, somewhere, hates them.

Exhaustion. Again and again. Loneliness loneliness loneliness so heavy they can’t breath. He can feel that it’s both of them but they aren’t _together._ Alone. Crying. Broken.

Each experiencing the nightmare side-by-side, seperated.

 

He wakes up sobbing and scared and saturated with emotions more intense than he’s made to understand.

And then faintly, softly, around his heart and between two layers of skin, there is the glow of the presence of another. Like the prickle-hair feeling of knowing you’re being watched without seeing anyone. Like the way things are easier when someone else is sitting across the room, even if you’re not even _speaking._

“Oh Venom, oh _honey_ I’m so sorry” and Eddie practically falls out of bed when feels the smallest hum in response. _I’ve got us. It’s gonna be ok, I’ve got us. I’m sorry I’m so sorry._

 

* * *

 

 

The same girl is working the counter at the bodega. It’s a small neighborhood, she’s probably one of the only people willing to be up at 4:03 AM.  

She looks like she wants to comment when he brings up three bags of frozen tater tots (the same ones he’d wavered on a few days prior) and one bag of frozen curly fries and a pre-packaged raw steak. But instead she just offers a gentle glance as she looks over his red, tear-stained face.

As he turns to go, she asks “you’re Eddie Brock, right?”

He nods, after a moment to consider.

“Whatever happened the other night, thank you”

The tears are back. “You don’t know what you’re talking about”

“It’s just… people are saying you attacked Drake, or like… sabotaged that rocket to get back at him or some shit but…” and she’s smiling softly now, “you stand up for people who need it. And I… I’m glad we’ve got somebody like you looking out for us, ok?”

“Yeah I… thanks” and he feels like his body’s just going to _dissolve._

 

* * *

 

 

He spends the next few days doting, doing everything he can to coax any whisper of a response from Venom.

He’s still not sure, oscillating from being hopeful and optimistic and confident to being despondent and hating himself for being _so stupid to fall for this. He’s gone._

First he eats all the potatoes he can get, remembering how they had, albeit momentarily, sated them the first time he’d felt that hunger. Ravenous. Coming back now.

After three servings of tots in less than an hour, he eyes the steak. Before, when Venom’d been hungry, He’d also been _strong._ Whole and powerful enough to overtake Eddie’s knowledge that raw meat is, in addition to a health hazard, disgusting. But now the Symbiote is weak and now Eddie is stuck between his own distaste and his overpowering need to _help_ Him.

Ok, in the end, it wasn’t much of a fight. He only ends up staring, nauseated, at the bloody thing a few seconds before digging in. _I know it’s not alive but… I’m trying. I promise, I’m trying, I’m trying to be good for you._ He starts cutting it with a knife, but after a few struggling minutes he switches to tearing with his (dull, human) teeth.

The thing is - it _doesn’t_ taste bad. It tastes fucking delicious. Like blood like life.

Taste’s almost as good as the liquid satisfaction thrumming through his blood, if just for a few moments, after each bite.

Or maybe he’s just imagining.

 

* * *

 

 

Two more days of just the shifting, incorporeal _feeling_ . No words. Nothing solid to hold on to. It isn’t even like it had been before, when Eddie had been able to really _get_ Venom’s emotions, experience them secondhand. Instead, it was just shadows, whispers of Him. Too much goddamn space between them.

Two more nights of terror that isn’t either of theirs alone. They ache to go through it together, to share the nightmares. It’d be easier, it’d be _fine,_ if they were just together.

 

Then a good dream. Another memory, but this time from the woods.

Venom’s healing, still not whole but getting there. He’s better able to feel Eddie now, to take in what’s happening to him, to see his thoughts and hear his voice.

It’s easiest when he’s dreaming. When the boundaries of his mind are thinner, more liquid. Easy for the Symbiote to sink into.

Yes, yes in this dream He sinks into Eddie.

 

He watches for a moment, trying to understand what’s happening.

They’re back in the forest where they were reunited. All the emotions, sticky and sappy and tactile, flood them.

They’d wanted each other then and now once again they want and they want and they want.

Eddie arches off the ground and -

Venom flows over his skin and -

Venom’s invading the dream now, taking the lead and holding Eddie and kissing him and pressing His tongue into his mouth and -

Eddie whimpers, in their headspace and in the quiet room. Moans softly. Venom thinks, maybe, that he says His name.

They push together, closer and closer.

No space between them.

Wherever there is emptiness, the other fills.

Wanting, needing.

Loving.

In the forest, there were things which stopped them from continuing. They had longed to be together _together,_ to bond - the human way, the Symbiote way, all of it. But things had stopped them. Anne was there, Riot was there. Guilt and hate and cruelty were there.

Not here. Not in the dream.

In the dream this is all there is in the whole universe.

In the dream Eddie’s heart hums, _I won’t ever leave you._

Back where He’d come from, Venom’s people would have called this connection ‘corruption’. Eddie’s head is still foggy like this, but He thinks his people call it the same.

But it feels right and it feels good.

Soothing. Healing.

A Symbiote fixes a host, that’s how it _works_ but Eddie… Eddie works so hard to fix Him.

He cherishes Him.

Accepts Him as He invades him, as He loves him so hard it should hurt but he just takes it. Venom holds him tighter and tighter and sinks in again. Again.

**_Eddie Eddie Eddie_ **

_Venom!_

It’s human, so so human. The give of soft flesh. The push and pull of emotions like the tide coming in. The growing, coiling heat that doesn’t burn. When He’s stronger, Venom thinks, He can’t wait to make this real. The dream is good, the dream is perfect but outside of it Eddie’s body is shaking and his nerves are alight and **_Oh_ **if He could make this real…

They come undone, both in the sheets and in their psyche, and for a moment the Symbiote panics. It’s new and strange and **_Eddie Eddie_ ** He can’t _lose_ Himself more He’s already so unravelled and mindless and hazy and -

And then they aren’t swept apart by it. They’re pulled together, bound together, just a bit - not enough but… it’s good. Things are hazier, yes, but clearer too. Eddie relaxes more, lets Him in more. They’re flooded with substances they don’t have words for but certainly have a taste for. Viscous satisfaction.

In those seconds, everything is _perfect._

 

Then Eddie jolts awake.

_Guilt guilt shame._

For a second he only feels it, doesn’t understand what the _source_ could be. But then he feels his sticky, softening cock. And the sweat drying on his skin. And the difficulty of his breathing.

Then he remembers the dream. And for the first time since the water, Eddie, just the smallest, weakest part of him but so loud, hopes that Venom isn’t there with him. Hopes that He hadn’t seen…

 _I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I dont… I don’t want…_ “I’m sorry I’m sorry please I won’t hurt you. I wouldn’t do _that_ to you I don’t wanna hurt you and I’m sorry”

 

* * *

 

 

The instant mashed potatoes and Burger King fries aren’t enough. Eddie knows that they’re not enough and even worse (and _better, better too_ ) with each passing hour, day, he feels more and more from Venom. Who knows even louder that they’re not enough.

Chocolate too (he’s never really craved it before, and so that must be Him, right? _right?_ ) isn’t doing it.

But even if he can feel the Other’s emotions and react to His sensations, they still can't quite communicate.

Which is how he finds himself back at his freezing, ravaged apartment. Lifting up his mattress and staring at the gun he’d bought back in August of 2017. It had always been easy to look at, because it was so _abstract._ A gun, yes, but only semantically. It was never actually going to shot, he figured.

But now… he remembers how _nourished_ they’d felt after biting the head off that man. Something alive, they need to eat something alive.

A very very selfish bit of him reasons, _you don’t even know He’s alive. Are you really going to make yourself a murderer because of some delusional hope?_  And then something even harsher adds,  _you shouldn’t want Him back anyway, you know. He’s a monster. He was killing you. Pathetic. Needy._

But those parts of Eddie are small and evil and not his own. Really, it isn’t even a question. Of course he’d do anything for Venom. Sure, _yeah it’s pathetic, I’m pathetic. But we need eachother._ A little lost humanity is a small price to pay for your… _soulmate_ … back from the dead. “I’ve got us” he whispers into the night.

 

He follows the mugger down the alley. Ready. _I’m ready I’ll do it._

But in the end, he just pulls out the pistol and tells her to run. Just like he had the carjacker and the catcaller.

 _I'm weak without you. Sweetheart I’m sorry I can’t do it_.

They’re starving. Like when you wake up in the morning and you aren’t hungry until you’re cooking and then there’s the smell of crackling oil and cooking eggs and it gets you salivating. _Starving._

But standing there, watching the woman back away and out into the safety of the busy road, Eddie can’t _manage._ He isn’t a killer, definitely not a cannibal.

He knows he needs to. For Venom. For Venom he would find the resolve but -

But he thinks _maybe tomorrow._ Thinks that _Maybe tomorrow we’ll be so desperate and malnourished that it’ll drown out the human._

And then, so fucking _awash_ in his own disgrace and inability -  “It’s ok. You can eat whatever you want you know. It’s ok, please” _please Venom, it’s ok. Eat me, eat me._

They’d be ok, somehow. They have to be, right?

Probably just need more sleep.

_It’s ok. Consume me._

 

They’re almost back to the motel when Eddie hears cries.

“Please dad, no!”

It’s twilight, and cold, and there isn’t much noise to crowd out the wailing from the empty parking lot. A boy, maybe six or seven years old at most, is shouting as a man, his _father_ , slaps him hard across the face. Eddie is _frozen_ with memories.

The blunt ache of trauma, bubbling up. Molten.

“You made a fool of me back there!”

“I’m sorry, dad I’m sorry!”

 _‘I’ll teach you to talk out of turn, Edward’_ he can practically hear the thought. Feel the sting of a closed fist and a black eye.

It’s his rage, but not his strength, that carries him over to the two.

He’s cold and dissociated. Numb.

Hungry.

He draws the gun. It’s not for show, it’s not abstract. It’s heavy. They’re _hungry._

The father and son stare at him. Terrified. Somewhere distantly he knows that what’s about the happen is just as traumatizing for the kid (hell, for him too) as what’s _been_ happening. That he shouldn’t. But -

“Get out of here” Eddie hears himself growl. The kid books it. No waiting, no pleading for the ol’ man’s life.

 _I guess that’s a good sign._ Eddie would have begged for his own father to be spared at that age.

This guy kinda even _looks_ like Carl Brock. Or maybe he’s just hallucinating. It doesn't matter.

He waits until the boy has disappeared around the corner to point the pistol anywhere but the wet blacktop.

“Please, please don’t do this”

“You hit a kid” _oh yeah_ \- that's definitely his voice this time.

“L-l-listen man, I d-didn’t mean anything by it”

_Pathetic._

“It was just t-tough lov-”

Eddie doesn’t feel himself pull the trigger, but he hears the gunshot. Smells the red of the blood where the bullet breaks through the man’s clavicle.

“That’s not what love is”.

 

It’s dark, and He’s sobbing as he pulls the still breathing body between the Dodge pickup and the foreclosed building it’s parked next to. He’s sick. Nauseous. Eddie thinks he might hear the man’s whisper of a voice, begging.

_I can’t do it I can’t do it alone darling._

But then - there’s something appetizing. It’s a foreign feeling. Tertiary, borrowed. Venom’s desire. But it doesn’t matter where it originated, its shared all the same.

Tentatively, he puts his teeth around the man’s ( _body’s. It’s meat. Food. Not a person’s)_ shoulder, half-over the weakly beating bullet wound, where the skin’s already gone.

He thought it’d be harder to take a bite. Distantly, he remembers learning that it takes only as much force, physically, to bite through a finger as a baby carrot, but that you can’t do it because of some subconscious thing.

He’s not sure if that’s true, but if it is, whatever that _thing_ is, it’s gone. It’s easy, to rip apart this man’s flesh. To chew and swallow.

Sickeningly easy.

Still, he only manages to take a few bites (and, to be honest, to drink quite a bit of blood) before self-hatred and disgust take over.

He can’t even _see_ there are so many tears in his eyes.

_Venom. Venom. Look, it’ll be ok. I got us I got us._

 

It's maybe twenty minutes of his life, but it takes everything out of him. Exhausted to his core. He’s less than half a mile from the motel but _oh fuck all I want is to lay down._

He’s dragging them back, only made it a block, when he sees a church. Feels hypnotized to walk towards it.

Hasn’t been in decades, but… if Eddie Brock’s ever needed penance, it’s now.

Besides, it’s a thursday night, there’ll probably be no one there, and it looks almost abandoned anyway. He could lay down for a few moments…

Rest.

Wash away some sin, maybe. _Maybe._

 

* * *

 

 

He falls to his knees as soon as they’re through the door, a familiar pose in a familiar setting. Tired, so tired.

But gently, gently, he feels satisfaction and nourishment radiating through them. _Ok. yeah, it was worth it. Oh Venom._

He closes his eyes, rests his head against the dusty, long-disused pew. Just a moment, _we’ll just rest for a moment._

And then he hears it.

**_Eddie!_ **

Something distant, a part of him buried deep since the last time he entered a building like this, almost feels religious, what with the booming voice in his head right here in the catholic church. But he  _recognizes_ that voice. The familiar, almost almost affectionate growl to it. The metaphysical not-feeling of a hand gripping his. The tsunami of deep, unbelievable _relief._

“Venom?” he whispers, for the thousandth time. “Venom!”

There’s no voice in answer, but a surging warmth curls around his heart. Swells with a wordless cry of **_together, together._ **

 

He falls asleep for some length of time, probably an hour or two.

Wakes up feeling - feeling like _us._

Eddie swallows, dread and hope saturating everything."Venom? Venom!?" his cries echo through the cathedral like prayer. “Are you… oh god are we - are we ok? Are you _alive_ _?_ ” his voice is hoarse, cracked. He still tastes copper on his tongue.

But then it's all worth it when he feels that surge of  _Him._

His heart beats out of his chest he hears - he hears, he feels - 

 **_Yes, Eddie. Yes._ ** And then, thick and laden with emotion, **_Thank you._ **The words are solid. Whole. Like a puzzle finally put together. Maybe only a few pieces missing, maybe some more wounds to heal over but -

But they’re real. _Oh._

A crashing, angry storm of emotion.

“I… I thought I lost you…” and _oh fuck_ he’s crying yet again. He’s a wreck, and _now that Venom’s back He’ll probably want another host. Wouldn’t blame Him -_

 ** _Idiot_**  He growls, loud and all through his heart. **_Would never leave you._** The response is desperate, hurried. Thrown at him so hard it knocks him back. Eddie almost laughs, all joy and shock and hysteria.

They overflow. 

Their thoughts mix together, mangle. Pour out, no filter. _I thought you’d died. **We're together now**_ ** _._ ** _I can’t live without you._ **_I won’t be without you._** _It hurt. Oh Venom. **Mine. You're Mine.**_   ** _Ours._** And then he feels hesitation, a floodgate. A lingering before a wordless swirl begging  _ **Forever. Oh Eddie forever? Please Eddie, please! Us, always, bonded forever forever forever -**_

He doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t question. “Yes”.

Everything stills when he breathes out the word.  _Yes, yes._

 

The Symbiote thinks, for a moment, that Eddie doesn’t understand the gravity of what He’s asking for. A bond, a real _bond._ An eternity. But his thoughts are earnest, and sweet, and he wants and wants and wants. _Yes, then. My answer is yes._ “Yes, Venom yes.”

 **_Eddie…_ **He wishes, wishes so deep they both ache, that He was strong enough to hold Eddie in His arms. To clutch Eddie close outside of the universe in their head and heart, the universe where things are kinder and easier. But He’s weak and He’s weak and instead He just radiates, as best He can, the warmth of an embrace.

“Take me”. Eddie’s voice is so _perfect._ He’s so welcoming. Accepting. Eddie is tender and good and makes Him feel whole. Needed. _Take me_ , he breathes again, and Venom does. Binds them together. Symbiosis.

Seethes over his heart, his being. Each cell, each bit of him.

**_Forever._ **

Eddie feels the world _shift._ Feels them stitch together, wrap their souls in one anothers’. Like a promise. If he was braver (and yes, later, once he _is_ braver, he _will_ ) he’d think ‘ _like marriage’._

They feel healed. They feel happy.

Venom longs for the human way, like the bonding in Eddie’s dream. He thinks - He thinks, He _hopes_ , that that will come soon too. It lingers at the margins of their mind, and He would welcome it happily, but Eddie pushes it away.

It doesn’t matter. This is enough. The completion, the realization that the others were _wrong,_ that a host could… that there could be _together_. This is enough.

 

* * *

 

 

For a while, they just lay there, taking it all in. The togetherness. The glow of something Eddie can’t yet get himself to call love (Venom can but… He won’t, not yet. Not until they’re both ready. Eddie has been so patient with Him - doting and understanding and _patient_ and it’s _hard_ but He’ll wait too. Heal him back, push him if He has to).

He can’t quite believe it - _we’re alive. We made it._

The building is quiet, and imposing. The memories are daunting. A week ago, the stain-glass light falling over their torso would have hurt Eddie. It’s ok now, though.

Things are easier together.

“Honey?” he murmes, and freezes at the word. A glow of affection creeps over him, though, so he’ll let it be. It … it feels right. _Yeah, Honey. Ok._ “Darling, do you… do you wanna go home?”

There’s a stir of confusion, that is truthfully both of theirs, at the words. **_What home?_**  He teases, and scatters images of the ruined apartment. 

“We… we’ll find a new one. That place was never any good. We can… we could make a home”

**_For both of us?_ **

“Yeah… a shared one. Together.” Something in him is scared, and halting. But its smaller, less-than the happiness. Wholeness. “For both of us. A real home”

And the joy is almost, almost enough to leak out into the physical.

 

* * *

 

 

A week later, in a small, dingy apartment with peeling walls (an apartment Eddie had sighed and called “beautiful” when they walked in the door as one), Venom stirs. Eddie remains asleep. Peaceful. **_Pretty._ **

He’s got that urge, that constant never-ending urge to _hold_ him. To wrap Eddie up in Himself and keep him safe, like He’d managed to do before.

Except suddenly - suddenly He _can._ **_Yes._ **

He tries not to wake him, to be quiet and gentle but the Symbiote’s so _eager._ Pours over His treasure.

He’s still not completely fixed, still can’t form as much of Himself as he would like, but He can wrap a facsimile of an arm around Eddie and press His best impression of a hand into his and purr His head up against his blushing, stubbled cheek. And it’s good. _It’s good._

 

In the early light of morning, in the cold autumn air, Eddie wakes. He’s embraced by another, by his Other.

He doesn’t stumble. He doesn’t question. Then, in their bed in their home, Eddie snuggles closer, wraps his arms around the goopy, inhuman form next to him. And maybe, just maybe, ( _but who’s gonna tell?_ ) he presses a kiss to His cheek.

**_Together._**

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> * if ur curious, the 'august of 2017' bit is referring to the 'unite the right' rally and the death there, after which i could pretty easily see Eddie getting a gun. I was gonna do the 2016 election but that felt way too easy.
> 
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> 
> [if you want the gayer follow up](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16563725)
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> 
> <3


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